Mark Henderson spent five years in the 82nd Airborne Division with its 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which executes parachute assaults and conducts combat operations worldwide. In 2010, he was deployed to Port Au Prince, Haiti, to help in the aftermath of the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake. But when he decided to return to the classroom, he was scared he wouldn’t be able to keep up with his classmates.

Henderson, however — now a government major in his junior year at Georgetown University — hit the ground running. He credits this in large part to the Warrior-Scholar Project (WSP), a program launched in 2012 that offers academic boot camps for veterans seeking a higher education.

“The biggest challenges in transitioning to life as a student … have been not having the same intellectual foundation as my peers,” Henderson told USA TODAY College in an email. “While most traditional students are coming straight from successfully navigating high school, I have had to shake off some rust.”

Participants at their final WSP reception at Georgetown University. Mark Henderson is top row, second from the left; Cristine Starke is bottom row, second from left. (Photo courtesy of Mark Henderson)

The WSP boot camp, hosted at campuses nationwide, is run by a team of student veterans, and taught by university professors and graduate students. The academic courses have a liberal arts focus, although boot camps at Yale University and the University of Oklahoma will include a STEM component for the first time this summer. But classes also address the transition experience itself, and include subjects like time management and tips for getting to know professors. Veterans who have “an actionable plan to attend college in the near future,” according to WSP’s website, are eligible to apply.

“What I got from it was academic prowess,” says Anthony Bunkley, now in his first year at Columbia University after transferring from community college, who had served as a Special Operations Combat Medic for more than eight years.

“I knew I was intelligent, but sometimes we lack confidence in ourselves, especially as veterans. … We’re taught to humble ourselves,” he says. “The Warrior-Scholar Project showed me that it’s a whole different ballgame in the academic realm. They showed me that I could apply myself, the same way I could apply myself in the military, to the university.”

In addition to the skills taught in the program, some say connecting with other veterans offers lasting benefits.

Cristine Starke, who served as an Arabic cryptologic linguist in the Marine Corps and is in her first year at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, says the first semester was a struggle. “WSP has been my greatest tool for transitioning,” she wrote in an email to USA TODAY College. “Coming from that life to sitting in a classroom talking about policy and implications and theories was extremely frustrating at times. … The veteran-student mentors I met during Warrior-Scholar Project are a constant voice in the back of my head.”

She says the anniversary of a friend’s suicide from her last deployment is approaching, “and in that instance I will certainly seek out my friends and fellow veteran mentors. But the WSP mentors also emphasized in our discussions that just because we are vets does not mean we have a monopoly on tragedy and many other people have relatable experiences.”

“It’s rough. I did eight and a half years as a special ops medic, and it’s hard to relate with anybody else,” says Bunkley. “But if you have a vet there who can kind of give you a blueprint, it helps.”

A total of 12 schools are hosting the program this year. In addition to Yale and Oklahoma, they are: the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Vassar College, Harvard University, Syracuse University, Cornell University, University of Southern California, University of Chicago and, for the first time, the University of Arizona.

Cody Nicholls, assistant dean of students for Military and Veteran Engagement at the University of Arizona and a veteran, says that identifying and reaching out to veterans in any given student body can be a challenge. “So to connect with vets before they even arrive on campus is a tremendous opportunity,” he says.

“We believe these vets are problem-solvers, team-builders,” says WSP Executive Director Sidney Ellington. “They’ve got technological and leadership skills that have been honed through military service. They’ve got a wealth of life experience that will enable them to look at problems in unique ways. … If you couple that with a top-tier education from a top-tier school, you’re going to have a civic leader.”

Elizabeth Teitz is a Georgetown University student and a USA TODAY College correspondent.